In Camp with L Company, Second Regiment New Jersey Volunteer Infantry — A Reader’s Guide

From State Records to War Footing

The transition from state militia to federal service is marked by a shift in Petty's prose. Early chapters dwell on inspection scores and range conditions—"our discipline was excellent and our annual inspection invariably showed 100 per cent"—but as the muttering of war begins, the language quickens. Petty notes that during the winter of 1897–98, particular attention was given to drills in extended order, and when spring opened, the pace of the narrative accelerates. The author does not dwell on political causes; instead, he records the practical adjustments: new equipment, changed schedules, and the quiet tension of men waiting. The reader senses that the same eye that tracked sharpshooter counts now watches for signs of departure.

St. Augustine: A Soldier's Sightseeing

Once in Florida, Petty's narrative voice shifts again, adopting the tone of a curious tourist. He describes the Plaza where Menendez landed in 1565, the old Cathedral with chimes dated 1682, and the coquina walls of the fort. His observations are concrete: "fine bread, green corn, roast lamb and golden butter, and to crown all, a heaping saucer of ice cream, and all for 25 cents." He notes the slave market platform, the Dade massacre monuments, and Osceola's capture. The prose becomes a catalog of sights—banana trees, date palms, oleanders—but always with a soldier's eye for detail. The ordnance sergeant's gaze at the fort reminds the reader that this is still a military man on duty.

Pace and the Unfinished Journey

The excerpts available end abruptly, leaving the narrative suspended in St. Augustine. Petty's structure so far alternates between methodical record-keeping and descriptive travelogue. The rifle-match statistics and armory costs belong to a peacetime world; the later passages, with their Spanish moss and coquina forts, suggest a widening horizon. Yet the author never explains how the company reached Florida or what campaigns followed. This gap is significant: the reader must infer that the war itself—the "little world of warfare" promised in the opening epigraph—remains largely outside these pages. Petty's voice, precise in the armory and vivid in the plaza, leaves the actual combat unwritten.

Petty's account is best read as a fragment of a soldier's experience, focused on the before and the between rather than the battle. The reader should attend to the shifts in register—from statistical pride to tourist wonder—as clues to how the author understood his service. The missing war is a silence worth noticing.

I kept thinking about how the camp felt like home to those men, the small routines and rifle scores carrying real weight. Petty’s tour of St. Augustine stayed with me oddly long. It reminded me of another quiet voice, one who wrote down seventeen years of service the same unhurried way. The Military Sketch-Book, Vol. 2 (of 2) Reminiscences of seventeen years in the service abroad and at home — Text and Context holds that same gentle patience, like a friend sharing old photographs without hurry.